Musical postcards from the world

The concert is a musical journey through countries, eras and styles. Many composers treated such “postcards” as a way to capture the auditory impressions of their own wanderings — a record of unforgettable moments and inspirations gathered along the way. For others, it was more of a game of musical chameleon, the pure pleasure of embodying different styles and sounds. As a result, we will hear an extremely diverse program, full of dance rhythms, humor and notes of exoticism.

Music has always crossed boundaries. Melodies travel between countries, dances change their meanings, and composers gladly reach for sounds they have heard somewhere in the world. Very often they become the starting point for creating your own musical language. It is from such encounters that pieces are born that speak as much about places as about the way the composers looked at them.

Alexander Tansman in the series En la T.S.F. turns radio into an atlas of sound idioms from different corners of Europe and America. It's a brilliant series of miniatures about a world that was easier and easier to hear at the time, though still not so easy to see. Maurycy Moszkowski and Johannes Brahms are more interested in how dance and rhythm can build musical identity. Spain, Poland and Hungary become a source of energy, characteristic melodic phrases and musical expression.

Against this background, the works of Marta Mołodyńska-Wheeler, a composer, pianist and synesthete, sound particularly interesting. In her Poligrajki, dance traditions of different cultures meet without historical limitations. Krakowiak meets ragtime, and fandango meets czardasz, which is why well-known idioms begin to function in completely different contexts than everyday ones. The concert suite will bring a synthesis of elements particularly close to the composer — singing melodies, jazz freedom and sophisticated harmonica. The differentiated parts are arranged in a coherent narrative whose axis is constant variability. Finally, Fazil Say will take us through the well-known streets of Winter Morning in Istanbul. This largest city in Turkey is for him a place written in his memory — full of movement and contrasts.

Although each of these compositions speaks their own language, they all share the belief that music develops through encounters — with tradition, other cultures, memory and imagination. It is from such meetings that songs are created that do not close the world in sounds, but allow you to look at it from a new perspective.

Recommended age: from 4 years

Performers: Marta Mołodyńska-Wheeler — piano; Grzegorz Mania — piano

Program: Aleksander Tansman — Turning the T.S.F. (1951): Radio-France, Radio-England, Radio-Poland, Radio-United States, Radio-Hungary, Radio-Spain, Radio-Italy; Maurycy Moszkowski — From different parts of the world op. 23: Spain, Poland, Hungary; Marta Mołodyńska-Wheeler — Polka, Walc, Ragtime, Fandango, Tarantella, Kragry Czardasz; Marta Mołodyńska-Wheeler — Concert Suite; Johannes Brahms — Hungarian Dance No. 4, Hungarian Dance No. 5; Fazil Say — Winter Morning in Istanbul